SocialCG should consult SocialHub before appropriating tasks

[aschrijver]

Yes, there was a misunderstanding @strypey. The post you are reacting to was moved here from another thread having multiple topics (my fault) that I disentangled. Discourse made a bit of a mess with incorrect sequence, so the confusion is not totally away

[how]

@thisismissem

I’m not sure on the history of why socialhub doesn’t have it’s own domain?

It’s simply because ActivityPub lives on activitypub.rocks, and the decision was made to maintain the forum, from the start, on this domain. The SocialHub was born from the APConf, there was no reason to put up another domain.

@thisismissem

the SocialHub effort to revamp the website stalled

That’s because nobody (except my single commit there) wanted to tackle a website in Guile. We do have access to the website sources.

@thisismissem

I’d also encourage folks to watch the SWICG mailing list

@thisismissem

Maybe there’d be some sort of way to mirror the SWICG mailing list as a forum within SocialHub as well?

Yes, certainly can do that. We would need to subscribe an address and add a dedicated category. This would facilitate discussion here and there.

[how]

@codenamedmitri

(Totally ok if not, we’ll also be coordinating here on SH and on github).

Another thing that stalled, for lack of understanding how things work on the Discourse side (ping @erlend_sh), is the Github-Discourse integration. One difficulty was that, at the time, only one GH repository could be synced to Discourse. I’m not sure if this changed yet, but we would need to have both AP and AS repositories followed so we have a better global view on the ongoing work.

[aschrijver]

@how

That’s because nobody (except my single commit there) wanted to tackle a website in Guile. We do have access to the website sources.

And on the most recent attempt I consulted with Christine and then defined a community project to revamp the ActivityPub Rocks portal literally kicking off with a " Participate in rebooting activitypub.rocks". I facilitated, spent time, and for a while some other folks were responsive to contribute, until that waned. Now I could have completed the task alone. But I had done that once before with Presenting Fedi Foundation: Empowerment for SocialHub community to the most lukewarm response possible.

Without community participation there is no community. Period. For SocialCG the same thing is true, unless maybe they pay for the work, which would lead to a different dynamics altogether.

[stevebate]

@aschrijver

for a while some other folks were responsive to contribute, until that waned

As a side note, my impression was that several smart people were suggesting different approaches to do the revamp. Some of the approaches appealed to me more than others. I was waiting for the “smoke to clear” before making a decision to participate, but it never did. I didn’t have the resources at the time to volunteer to lead the effort, but it did need leadership. It also wasn’t obvious to me that the domain control was ever actually granted. Without that and a consensus on the direction to take, it wasn’t surprising that the project stalled. I don’t think any specific person or people were at fault, but that’s my observations of what happened.

[aschrijver]

@stevebate

I don’t think any specific person or people were at fault

Not at all! For the past couple years - and there are a couple of threads related to it - everyone’s aggregated participation amounted to SocialHub being just-a-forum and not a Community of Action. That is a collective implicit choice. The portal project was a ramp-up to something more representative of a CoA, but - given prior experience - with little expectations of success. Next-best would’ve been slamming a static page in place with a more modern up-to-date design and content. But that was not the goal at the time, favoring a more lively portal.

[stevebate]

@aschrijver

Next-best would’ve been slamming a static page in place with a more modern up-to-date design and content. But that was not the goal at the time, favoring a more lively portal.

It reminds me of the idiom, "How do you eat an elephant…

The phrase, “slamming a static page in place”, sounds it would be an undesirable option. But I think that, even without a modern up-to-date design, just having up-to-date content would be useful and serve as a basis for further improvements. My experience is that even a little concrete progress can create some momentum to achieve something bigger.

Anyway, this is a bit of a tangent, so I apologize.

[strypey]

@stevebate

But I think that, even without a modern up-to-date design, just having up-to-date content would be useful and serve as a basis for further improvements. My experience is that even a little concrete progress can create some momentum to achieve something bigger.

Given that @stevebate and I have locked horns a bit over the last few days, I want to do more than silently this. Because this is exactly the point I was going to make. But probably not with the same brevity or clarity Steve has.

Even the simplest update would confirm to any observer that the domain owner is on board. As Steve quite rightly says;

@stevebate

It also wasn’t obvious to me that the domain control was ever actually granted.

I tried to contact Christine myself a year or two back, but was unable to get clarity either.

[how]

May I point to that Jekyll ActivityPub plugin that turns your static web site to life, thanks to https://distributed.press/?